


you knew who I was with every step (that I ran to you)

by lavendersblues (lonely_lovebird)



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Bisexual Nate Heywood, Bisexual Ray Palmer, Bromance to Romance, Do not post to another site, First Kiss, Indiana Jones References, Introspective Geniuses, M/M, Not Beta Read, Not Canon Compliant, Romantic Fluff, if you are reading this anywhere other than archive of our own it has been stolen, the legends are all disaster bisexuals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-28 21:40:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21143639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonely_lovebird/pseuds/lavendersblues
Summary: Nate and Ray, from the beginning. But the beginning isn't exactly where it started. It's hard to tell when you live on a Time Ship.





	1. Nathaniel

**Author's Note:**

> An introspective look at SteelAtom because everyone needs some fluff and this has been sitting in my drafts for too long.

Nathaniel Heywood had plenty of dreams. He’d spent most of his childhood dreaming them up. They were first and foremost the same as any little boys - being a superhero and saving the day. It was dreaming of being a superhero that gave him the scraped knee that sent him to the hospital and earned him the diagnosis of hemophiliac.

And then he met Indiana Jones, and his dreams changed. He wasn’t a superhero, flying around the world or leaping off tall buildings - he was an adventuring historian, who swooped in at the eleventh hour and saved the beautiful girl (even the one who screamed, because even though she annoyed Nathaniel, she was pretty and she deserved to be saved).

So for years, Nathaniel made up his own adventures, rescuing historical objects and winning the girl. He picked artifacts from his father’s encyclopedias and from the pages of the National Geographic's his mother never read even though they were delivered like clockwork. And the girl was always Marian Ravenwood (because everyone knew she was the best).

Nathaniel went on swashbuckling adventures, swooping in to find the Nazi serum and stop the evil villain from winning World War II, or taking down the corrupt Sheriff in the Old West, and stopping a train with his bare hands. Somehow his superhero dreams had morphed themselves into his Indiana Jones fantasy but seven year old kids didn’t see anything wrong with wanting both. And the settings of his dreams were as varied and unique as each edition of the National Geographic.

He was eleven when he met the man with the dark hair and big smile, who told him that he could be anything he wanted.

“Yeah, don’t worry, Nate,” he’d said with a beaming smile that warmed Nathaniel from the inside out. “You’re going to be just fine when you grow up. I bet one day you’ll even save the world with all that knowledge of history.”

He was the first person to call Nathaniel by ‘Nate’ and from then on he was Nate, adventuring historian, handsome swashbuckling hero and ladies man.

When he was fourteen and he realized that he wasn’t sure if he wanted to kiss Indiana or Marian, and he didn’t really bother with panicking. He just adjusted his daydreams to fit the new aspect of his personality. For a while they were the same as they had been when he was a kid, only he was saving Indy instead of Marian.

But then he was sixteen and his mother finally allowed him a few more freedoms and when he went out into the world he met Daniel Dreyer - a tall, kind of skinny, athletic senior from the local High School (that no matter his pleading, his mother refused to enroll him in). Daniel had a shock of dark black hair, relatively pale skin for being an outdoor athlete, and his smile was crooked. It went straight to Nate’s heart like lightning.

Suddenly his fantasies (which had taken a rather adult turn once he hit puberty) featured Daniel Dreyer as often, if not more than, as they featured a nameless shapely brunette with fire in her eyes and a laugh on her lip.

College was another experience altogether, and Nate tackled it with fervor, loving every second he was in his history classes, rushing through his degrees in record time before he was able to turn around and start teaching. He’d reached the pinnacle of his Indiana Jones dreams, and he was happy.

And then history started  _ changing,  _ and things got  _ really  _ complicated.

First was the drawing from Camelot. While going through one of his books for the Early Middle-ages, he noticed an illustration that he swore had been something else entirely the last twenty or so times he’d referenced the book. Now, instead of an illuminated drawing of Guinevere holding aloft a golden chalice that a fair haired knight had just offered to her, his hands raised - there was instead an illuminated drawing of the same Guinevere knighting a dark haired knight, kneeling, his face to the reader.

At first Nate wrote it off as the effects of too little sleep and too much coffee and he set it aside to think about later.

Then one of his students brought him a photo of hieroglyphs found in Giza with an almost spacecraft-like designation for a story about travelers that had arrived and left from the sky. Nate stared at the image with wide eyes, his brain blanking for several long moments.

“Can I keep this?” He asked the student quickly, and she jumped, nodding quickly.

“Yeah, of course Doctor Heywood. I have a few more weird anomalies if you want to look at them.”

Nate thought for a long moment before tilting his head at the hieroglyphs one last time. “Yeah, you know what? I think I would like to see what you have.”  
  
  


Three weeks later and Nate was sitting on one of the biggest discoveries of his career - except it wasn’t one he could take to his peers or even the National Geographic. If anything, it would be an easier sell to the National Enquirer.

Spread out on his coffee table were the proofs of actual, real  _ time travel _ .

He had grouped the items by similarity, leaving him with piles he called the Ray Palmer group, the Sara Lance group, and the Super Power group. The easiest to distinguish was every instance of a black haired, pale, skinny man mentioned or illustrated. After a long period of trying to determine who could possibly be the culprit of alternating history, Nate had settled on Ray Palmer - the CEO (of a failing company) that had been out of the public eye for nearly a year. He was also a known associate of Oliver Queen, who was a close friend to Sara and Laurel Lance. It was the obvious conclusion.

The Sara Lance pile was simple - every account or illustration was of a blonde woman in white fighting with a staff. Even if Nate wasn’t a genius historian, he could have put the pieces together. It wasn’t a difficult leap to realize that Sara and Laurel were both incarnations of the Black Canary, and that the change in color was a shift in Sara’s way of separating herself from her late sister. The White Canary.

As for the Super Power Group, Nate had heard about the Nuclear Powered Man (Firestorm?) in reports from Central City. The man who turned to metal was a new figure, but he was sure that it wasn’t hard for time traveling super heroes to pick up a few friends along the way. And there was mention of a few other characters here and there that Nate had no reference for but he was certain were allies of the time traveling “Legends” as they called themselves.

If it had just been proof of time travel, Nate probably would have left it alone.

It was the disturbing and alarming trend of evidence indicating their demise that pushed him to break into Mayor Oliver Queen’s office.

He had no way of knowing that choice would change his life forever.  
  
  
  


_ Oh my god, he’s so cute - please help _ , Nate Heywood thought to himself as Ray Palmer beamed at him. For a long time, Nate had counted and hoarded those smiles but he’d lost count somewhere around the five hundreds. Each smile had his heart leaping in his chest and Nate couldn’t believe he got to call the four time PhD graduate genius his best friend.

“I just think that team bonding is essential!” Ray continued, oblivious to his best friend’s internal turmoil. “But I don’t think anyone else wants to have a regular movie night.”

Nate pulled a face and slapped Ray on the shoulder once before squeezing ( _ How is he so fit? He’s a glorified nerd! It’s not fair! _ ). “Sorry buddy, but I’ll watch movies with you whenever you want. That’s a promise.”

Ray smiled and Nate thought his heart might explode.  
  
  


Amaya was everything Nate thought he wanted. She was petite, beautiful, badass, and despite his new superpower enhancements she could still kick his ass into next week. Nate really liked her.

He thought she was his Marian Ravenwood.

Later, he thought that maybe his delusion was brought on by a lack of a substantial dating history and the fact that they were on a ship with a small crew and there weren’t opportunities to go out and get a date when he needed to blow off some steam. (Not that he’d had a lot of opportunities back in Star City either. Once women found out he was a hemophiliac, they tended to leave without so much as a goodbye.)

But Nate was still the fourteen year old boy on the inside who wanted to swoop in at the last second and save the girl.

Maybe if he’d been paying attention he would have noticed how often he was swooping in at the last second saving a very handsome, very tall, sweet scientist.

It wasn’t even conscious - it was just what you did when you were on a team. Except maybe it was somewhat conscious. After Ray’s blow-up in Feudal Japan, Nate had never forgotten how fragile Ray really was without his suit. Guns came out and he never hesitated to jump in front of his best friend.

And Ray never complained about being the damsel in distress either. Even when he had the suit and Nate came to the rescue. Ray just beamed his goofy smile and melted Nate’s heart a little more. Somehow, Nate had expected a toxic masculine response the first time he’d helped Ray out of a tough spot, but the man had simply slapped his shoulder (with the suit on, and  _ holy fuck  _ that hurt) and moved on.

When he thought Ray had died in Camelot, he almost cried. But Ray grumbled and groaned and relief flooded Nate like stepping into a warm shower. When Ray gave him the warning about Amaya, Nate hadn’t been kidding when he’d said he thought Ray was putting the moves on him. (He kind of liked it.)

And when he was half historian, half yoga instructor? Nate hadn’t even been bothered with how attractive he found Ray. It was the first time since joining the team that he hadn’t even looked twice at Amaya because Ray was  _ right there _ . Yoga Instructor Nate was  _ very _ interested.

But then the guilt set in that he was taking advantage of Ray’s friendship by thinking about him that way so he just shoved the feelings down into a lock box in his heart like he had most of his life. His feelings about his dad were pushed over to add his Ray-centric issues. Ray had never given Nate any indication that he might even be interested so Nate would just be happy being his best friend.

And if those feelings slipped out every now and then, when he thought he’d lost Ray, or he thought they were going to die?

It was nobody’s business but his own.  
  
  
  


“Sometimes I get worried that he gets lost in his own head,” Ray’s mother said with an exasperated look on her face. Nate’s heart lurched because he knew that Little Ray was lurking in the doorway to his room.

The entire incident with the Dominator was a disaster, and Nate was pretty certain that Ray was going to hate him. (Even though it wasn’t Ray’s mother, the whole kissing the Dominator disguised as her was going to go down in the history books as one of Nate Heywood’s stupidest ideas. Though he wasn’t entirely certain that the Dominator’s mind control hadn’t contributed in part to his stupid mistake.)

But Nate couldn’t stop thinking about what Mrs. Palmer had said before his fog-riddled hormonal brain had been tricked by the Dominator.

Ray was one of the most genuine people that Nate had ever met and to realize that maybe Ray needed saving from himself left Nate feeling off kilter.

Ray had saved Nate on multiple occasions. First, he’d saved Nate from bleeding to death by giving him the adjusted serum that gave him not only his cool new super powers, but also cured his hemophilia. Ray had given Nate  _ everything _ that Nate considered essential to his current life. Without Ray Palmer, Nate would either be dead, or still a sheltered university instructor talking about history but never getting closer to it than his books.

All of Nate’s repressed feelings broke loose, like a tsunami of love and guilt, and he retreated to his room to try and figure things out.  
  
  
  
  


There was a knock on the door.

“Yeah?” Nate called out weakly. He assumed it was Amaya or Sara coming to talk about what happened with the Dominator. Their first experience with the Dominator’s had left Nate wheezing in his bunk, swearing that he would never say another bad thing about the fourth Indiana Jones film, when Amaya had come to check on him.

This time, however, the door opened slowly and an achingly familiar voice floated through. 

“Nate? Buddy? You okay?” Ray peered around the corner of the door, looking at Nate with such open care and affection that Nate was ready to bust open the cargo door again and throw himself back into the Time-Space vortex.

“Hey,” he croaked, sitting up quickly. “Ray, hey dude, come in.”

Ray obligingly shuffled into the room awkwardly. As often as Nate had been in Ray’s room, he realized that Ray had never been to Nate’s quarters and he looked around with interest, hanging back. Nate swiveled on the bed, until his feet were on the floor. He patted the empty space next to him in the universal symbol of invitation and Ray smiled before sliding up to sit next to Nate, pressed against his side like he’d been that night in the Cretaceous Era in front of the roaring fire.

Ray fiddled with his thumbs awkwardly for a moment before breaking the short silence.

“Nate, you know I’m not mad at you, right?”

Nate stared in confusion.

“Yeah? I mean, Ray you couldn’t be mad at anyone for long even if you tried. I think I’m more mad at myself than you could ever be.”

Ray relaxed visibly and Nate could feel the tension drain from him, in the way he almost imperceptibly leaned closer to Nate. “Oh good,” he breathed with a grin. “Z and Amaya were saying that maybe you thought I was mad about the whole…Dominator kiss thing. Which I’m not, you didn’t actually kiss my mom. So while it’s  _ weird _ and I’m going to try and forget the whole thing, I’m not mad.”

Nate wanted to bang his head against the wall. Ray was too  _ good _ for his own good.

“Oh good,” Nate tried to sound chipper but he failed. “Well I’m glad buddy, I should have used my head. Our friendship means more to me than that.”

Ray’s shoulder nudged him and Ray shot him a conspiratorial glance. “Yeah, I know. I just wanted to check.” He paused and the silence was companionable, and Nate wanted to live in that moment for the rest of his life. But it ended, like all the good things in Nate’s life. “Well I’m gonna head back to the kitchen. I was going to make my signature ham and cheese casserole my mom used to make if you want to join.”

Nate gave a weak smile. “Yeah buddy, I’ll think about it.”

“Alright. Feel better Nate, we all make weird mistakes,” Ray said with a smile before disappearing back through the door leaving Nate alone.

“No we don’t,” Nate sighed to the empty air. “You couldn’t make a weird mistake even if you tried, Ray.”  
  
  
  


Amaya was gone.

Nate at least got a goodbye this time, but she was still gone. Their “whatever” was over for good and he didn’t know how to feel.  
  
  
  


When Nate was eleven years old, his mother had been forced to take him to work with her, leaving him in the office lobby for nearly eight hours. He’d talked to the janitor for a while and read his National Geographic, but it was boring. He’d eventually gotten up to explore and that was when he ran into the tall man with the big smile.

“Nate?” He’d asked upon Nate running into his legs after rounding a corner too fast.

“Um, my name is Nathaniel,” he’d said in reply. He didn’t know the stranger and he couldn’t recall seeing him at any of his mom’s office parties either. He was dressed in a business suit so he looked like he belonged in the work environment. But he seemed off somehow.

“Right! Right, sorry. What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be at home?”

For a stranger, the man seemed to know an awful lot about Nathaniel’s life.

“My mom got called in for an emergency so she made me come with her… She couldn’t get a sitter on short notice.”

“Aw man, that’s too bad. Guess I’ll just have to pretend I didn’t see you sneaking around,” he winked. “Looking for adventures?”

“Yeah.”

The man grinned. “I bet you’ll have lots of adventures when you grow up.”

Nathaniel scuffed his foot and looked at the ground. “I can’t. I have hemophilia.”

“Ray!” A new voice hissed from the end of the hallway and Nathaniel looked up quickly to see another man, sort of shorter than the one he’d been talking to, with brown hair, a scruffy jaw, and a navy suit waving at the man Nathaniel was talking to. “Get over here! Who are you talking to?”

Ray beamed. “Oh, just a friend.” He winked at Nathaniel. Before he left with the other man who was rambling about something to do with Ancient Egypt and one of his mom’s coworkers, he glanced back at Nathaniel.

“Yeah, don’t worry, Nate,” he beamed. “You’re going to be just fine when you grow up. I bet one day you’ll even save the world with all that knowledge of history.”  
  
  
  


“So who were you talking to in that hallway really, Ray?” Nate asked as they boarded the Waverider to head home.

“I told you,” Ray had that smile that said he had a secret. “Just a friend.”

“Uh huh.”

“Goodnight Nate,” he called before disappearing into his quarters.


	2. Raymond

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Raymond gets introspective and there's some smooching and some non-canon saving of the damsel in distress. This probably didn't have to be a separate chapter but since it changed perspective I wanted to break it up.

Ray Palmer was a simple soul. He tried to see the best in people, even the people that seemed to have nothing good in them - like Mick. Ray saw the tiny spark of good in their delinquent team member because he looked for it.

Ray couldn’t stay mad at anyone either. Maybe he should have, Felicity would have told him he should have at least been a little mad. Felicity was one of the nicest people Ray had ever met and even she thought his optimism was a little much. That wasn’t why they’d broken up, of course, but Ray couldn’t be mad at her for loving Oliver Queen. He’d had his suspicions before he even hired Felicity, so he knew what he was getting into when he started dating her too.

Kendra he could forgive, because with 4000 years of history, their short time together really never stood a chance against her lost love.

And maybe because he understood. If Anna came back from the dead, Ray wouldn’t hesitate. It wouldn’t even be a question.

So Ray pressed on. He was never mad. That was his strength.

But that didn’t mean he didn’t feel guilt. If anything, that was Ray Palmer’s greatest weakness. Carrying guilt for things he should have let go. He still smiled and pressed forward with an unerring hope that drove his teammates up a wall, but it was one of the ways he coped with the tiniest dark corner of his mind.

He’d never expected to meet someone who saw straight through his smile and made sure he couldn’t keep accumulating grief and guilt until it consumed him. Nate Heywood was an anomaly in Ray Palmer’s life. He was a hemophiliac who wasn’t afraid to put himself in danger, even if it cost him his life. He was a book smart historian who could also kick ass.

He was a real life Indiana Jones.

Ray Palmer fell fast, and he fell  _ incredibly _ hard.

But Ray didn’t expect Nate to even be interested - bisexual men weren’t as open in the 21 st Century as they should have been, in Ray’s opinion. He’d never had a reason to openly declare his bisexuality either, so maybe it was entirely his fault.

Some days he just wished he could turn their bromance into a romance.   
  
  
  
  


“I almost lost you,” Nate whispered, his hand cupping the back of Ray’s neck. Ray was breathing heavy, both hands clutching Nate’s forearms. Things had been bad but Ray was almost certain he should have been the one worrying about losing the other.

“I’m so sorry,” Ray’s voice was hoarse. Nate had held him in a chokehold while they had worked to free him from Neron’s control. It had bruised his larynx but it wasn’t something Gideon couldn’t fix in a flash, as soon as he got to medbay off the floor where he was kneeling with Nate. Who wouldn’t let him go.

Nate’s hands kept running over his hair and neck -  _ through _ his hair and neck, as Nate pressed his forehead against Ray’s. Their heavy breath was warm and moist, mingling between them. Nate’s eyes were an incredible blue.

“I should be the one apologizing,” Nate’s now warm skin-covered fingers brushed the already forming bruise pattern on Ray’s neck.

“You’re alive, you have nothing to apologize for,” Ray retorted, one of his hands shaking as it slid up Nate’s arm and to the back of his neck. “Neron promised he wouldn’t kill you but…” Nate nodded in understanding.

“But I’m here,” he finished for Ray lamely, eyes closing for a moment as Ray squeezed his neck gently. “And if you don’t stop doing that I’m going to kiss you.”

Everything stopped.

Their breaths halted, the noise from the rest of the Legends around them went silent. Nate’s eyes flew open and he looked panicked but Ray was far from panic. The thudding in his ears was from his heart picking up speed and swell with an inkling of hope.

“What?”

Nate tried backpedaling, stammering over a series of excuses as flimsy as Ray’s own attempts at lying.

“I — No, wait, see, I didn’t — I meant… Actually —.”

Ray saved him the trouble by rushing forward and pressing their lips together quickly, taking the leap, and waiting to see if he would fall or he would fly. It was ten times more terrifying than trying to shrink for the first time, than facing down Vandal Savage, than taking a trip through time.

Nate’s lips were warm and a little chapped but within a fraction of a second he relaxed pulling Ray closer, his hands clasped around Ray’s jaw. Nate took the initiative and tugged lightly on Ray’s bottom lip with his teeth and Ray was embarrassed at the moan that ripped from the pit of his stomach and he clung to the broad shoulders of Nate a little harder.

It was a good thing they were already on the floor because otherwise Ray’s knees might have decided to give out at the feeling of Nate’s tongue teasing the seam of his lips. He returned the kiss with a fervor, enjoying the way that Nate gasped as he teased back, his tongue flicking gently against Nate’s.

“Alright guys, this is honestly a great development but it’s neither the time nor the place,” Sara’s voice broke the moment and Nate and Ray shoved back, wide eyed and a little wild. But their hands refused to surrender their grips as they both turned to their Captain who was watching with a smug expression.

“Can’t say I didn’t see this coming,” she laughed. “But Ray, you really need to get to the medbay to have Gideon fix you up. Nate? Be useful and escort your boyfriend.”

Nate’s jaw was unhinged, hanging open as he watched Sara turn her back. “Wait! You saw this coming?! I didn’t even see this coming!”

Sara turned back and flashed a smirk. “This has always been a ship of disaster bisexuals, it just took you two a little bit longer to figure out that you were meant for each other.”

“Oh,” Ray breathed, watching his friend disappear around the corner before turning back to Nate who was looking just as lost and afraid and excited as he felt. He squeezed the back of Nate’s neck again and was pleased with the resulting groan. He’d never expected to be the one drawing out those sounds from Nate and now he couldn’t help himself.

“Come on, Ray, we need to get you checked out,” Nate sighed, standing on shaking legs. He pulled Ray to his feet, catching the taller man when he stumbled and almost fell over. He’d really taken a beating under Neron’s influence, and Nate was just  _ so damn happy _ that he was back to his old self and he was back with them.

That he was back with Nate.

“Hey,” Ray whispered, brushing a thumb against Nate’s cheekbone as he cupped Nate’s face gently. “Stop thinking so hard. I’m fine. I’m here. You saved me.”

Nate clutched the wrist attached to that hand like a lifeline and he fought off the strange bubbling feeling of tears that was fighting it’s way up his chest. Ray was alive, Ray was back with them, Ray was his best friend, Ray  _ loved  _ him.

With only a small amount of stumbling the pair made their way to the medbay, settling Ray into the chair that Nate had been in when he’d been dying of hemophilia and a bomb blast. When Ray had saved him, giving him not only a serum that saved his life but gave him a new purpose.

That had given him a reason to stay on the ship - to stay with Ray.

In the end, it had all been leading up to this moment, and Nate finally let the tears leak from the corners of his eyes with a wobbling smile. He’d already attached the sedative bracelet to Ray’s wrist but even as he was fighting the effects, Ray reached up and brushed the tears away with a smile.

“I love you,” Ray slurred and Nate’s heart almost exploded. “Will you be here when I wake up?”

Nate brushed his fingers through the edge of Ray’s hair where he’d started going grey. It had always made the genius seem distinguished and Nate loved it, even though he knew that Ray was self conscious of his age - of seeming weak.

“I’m not going anywhere Ray,” he replied and Ray relaxed, his eyes drifting shut. Nate leaned forward and pressed a chaste kiss to Ray’s forehead. “I’m never leaving you again.”

Ray was asleep and Nate brushed his hand across Ray’s hair one final time.

“I love you too.” The words were familiar. “Nothing’s going to change that.”


End file.
